Planet of Lana

Planet of Lana is a beautiful side-scrolling adventure that follows a young girl and her cat on a search for a lost friend. Lana witnesses the destruction of her village by an extra-terrestrial invasion and manages to escape. The rest of the game is traversing a variety of landscapes with natural challenges (chasms, hills, etc.) while evading the invaders (death ray drones, mechanical spiders, etc.). You also find alien machinery to puzzle out and use as you make your way. The game feels a bit like LIMBO or INSIDE but has less violence and seemed a bit easier. Your alien encounters are interspersed with long walking sequences that provide respite.
I am not a cat person, but I could not help cheering for Mui - Lana's feline companion who responds to her commands and has special powers. Lana is 'the last child standing' and the cat provides friendship and assistance. All dialog is in a fictional language but the game manages to create strong emotions about love and joy, fear and loss. It also does a good job of creating an atmosphere of true menace when Lana is at risk.
Typically, I do not excel in this genre. However, Planet of Lana was manageable. A couple of the evasion scenes are quite tricky as you coordinate the movements of Lana and Mui to survive. My timing failed more than a few times before I finally hit the magic combination and moved on.
For me, the hardest task in the game was when I had to load Mui on a drone and fly him about without killing him. The drone controls are very wonky and keeping the drone steady without sending Mui into an electrified wall or industrial fan was quite daunting. After several days, Mui survived my drone piloting and we were headed towards the final chapter. There is no true 'boss' battle at the end. However, there is a QTE-like exercise which almost gave me carpal tunnel. I played with a controller but there was still a lot of button mashing.
The game autos-saves frequently, after each collectible (10 shrines to locate) and each major scene. Although there are some exceptions, progress on incomplete puzzles is not saved. Failure usually meant starting from the beginning of the exercise. SIgh...
The art is beautiful, the music is passionate, and the story is sweet. If you don't mind some running, jumping, climbing, and stealth, then I'd highly recommend this game. Completionists have their work cut out for them... 100% requires that you survive the entire game without dying (a lofty goal, indeed!).

My name is Lana and that was the sole reason that I became initially interested in this game.
However, that being said, I was overjoyed to find that this filled an INSIDE shaped hole in my heart. I love 2D platformers, such as Limbo and INSIDE, especially of the abstract / surrealistic variety. This checked all my boxes. Stunning artwork? Check. Gorgeous soundtrack? Check. Abstract and avant-garde execution? Check. Bonuses: You get an adorable cat companion that you can pet. Also, there are some moments that really hit hard emotionally. I got teary eyed a few times.
There is a plot line, yes, but the game definitely urges you to use your own imagination while you go on the journey of unraveling the plot. In my opinion, the plot was loose and very abstract for most of the game, but towards the end, everything came together and everything made sense. The game is 90% about the journey and 10% about the actual plot. Like I said, by the end, it's very obvious what the whole journey was about and everything starts to completely make sense.
I highly recommend it. It's such a relaxing and chill game that's embedded with occasional moments of tension and dread. Definitely kept me on the edge of my seat. The game had a slow start for me, but once it gained traction, I couldn't put it down. I finished it in one sitting and can't stop smiling and gushing about how wonderful it was.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☑ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☑ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10
Overall very worth it, I'd say. Had me hooked for an entire afternoon. Definitely a good game to play if you just want to enjoy storytelling along with riddle solving.

Side-scrolling puzzle/hide-and-seek game w/ flappy bird drone controls and button mashing QTEs
Pros:
* Excellent level design, overall
* Beautiful music
* Elegantly simple control scheme for your magical cat/monkey/whatever companion
* Great puzzle design, overall, w/ at least one unique (to me) mechanism - using the companion/yourself to distract enemies.
Cons:
* A bit long
* About halfway thru, they introduce BUTTON MASHING QTEs. F*CK OFF
* Controlling drones is a bit clunky... and when you also have claustrophobically-narrow death-touch walls & ceiling. F*CK OFF
Meh:
* The kidnapped-family-member and puzzle/hide-and-seek genres are overpopulated, IMO.
* The climbing-rope physics are a bit weird. You can rocket-jump off of them; also, you can spend way too long trying to build up a swing.
TL;DR: It's good, but not "OMG, gottabuyitnow" good. 6.5/10, if you like puzzles. Else, avoid.

Beautiful and serene, Planet of Lana is like the child of Studio Ghibli and Limbo. Painterly landscapes contrasted with imposing, robotic invaders summon feelings of childlike wonder and fear in equal parts. Definitely recommend, especially if you enjoy similar experiences!

+ Cute and colorful Limbo
+ Easy game you can play to chill
+ No frustrating areas
+ Breathtaking landscapes
+ Short little snacc
+ It made me cry
+ Mui
- Full price may be a bit salty for some. Costs 20€ and takes about 2-5 hours to play. Though you will probably not get all achievements on the first run, so there's that.

sometimes the simplest of games make for the best gaming experiences.
rating system is arbitrary for this one. It's just a really good, simple story game. If you want a challenge, look for it elsewhere because this game wasn't made to be challenging, it was made to tell a story and imo they absolutely nailed what they wanted to make.